The Tulsa Fire Department can now recover the money it spends cleaning up car accidents. The city council unanimously approved an ordinance Wednesday allowing TFD to work with Fire Recovery USA to bill drivers’ insurance companies instead of taking that money out of the city’s general fund.
The department spends about $1.2 million a year cleaning up nearly 4,400 car accidents. The change is set to take effect Dec. 12.
Douglas Carner, assistant fire chief, told a council committee Wednesday the only change a driver will notice is firefighters will ask for their names and insurance information at the scene.
“Fees can only be recovered from the party at fault, if there is one. If they have insurance the individual will not be billed,” he said. “We’re only going to ask to be reimbursed from insurance companies. Just from our collection of our recovery of funds, there should not be a price increase to individuals’ insurance premiums.”
Uninsured motorists will not be billed.
“We’re only going to try to collect reimbursement from insurance,” Carner said. “We don’t want to put any of our citizens or any individuals in a financial hardship if they don’t have the insurance.”
He said Fire Recovery already works with 43 other states. Partnering with them, he said, would help “reduce the financial burden on the city and the tax dollars that the citizens are paying” while helping provide some “sustainability for the fire department in general.”
